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Smash Ace

I was going to keep this a bit of a secret until apex but i'm not a god nor am i a genius so i figure i would post some interesting ness tech i found in order for us to explore it's potential together.

I don't know whether this is already known, but i do know that it isn't in any of the guides (with the exception of an unsure assertion that djc dair is the quickest way to get out of shield), threads, or videos on this forum or on youtube. I don't see any ness' taking advantage of it. If it is known there certainly isn't enough discussion about it, and that is what this thread is for.

A little while ago in the ness meta discussion i had a curiosity about a strange thing that was happening to me in matches. I did a little lab'ing and i ended up discovering an interesting and completely unique movement for ness, even though it had nothing really to do with what i was curious about in the first place. A lot of ness' utilize dair for it's auto-cancel window, mostly as a mix-up/bait or whatever. It wasn't really until hbox that we saw a ness that was taking advantage of the auto-cancel windows on all of his aerials and applying it to movement. Combined with the double jump arcs that djc characters have and the fact that ness stops moving vertically after an aerial starts during his double jump, we can use djc and dair together for movement.

Some people probably know this much already. The problem is doing it quickly. At first, i was doing this using Y -> Y+left/right/neutral control stick -> cstick down -> fast fall, and i questioned it's use on the ground. Doing it like this i could traverse platforms extremely quickly, without the lag nor the proximity limitation of using an air dodge. Using double jump + dair, i could effectively extend the distance in which i can get myself onto a platform, as well as move from ground level to top platform (on specific stages) more quickly than any other method ness has. Since dair auto-cancels within a massive 19 frame window, you can get on a platform and buffer a light/heavy shield or grab, or any other grounded option really.

All of a sudden ness was becoming a lot more mobile on platform stages. When i realized that there was another way to jump outside of Y and X, a way that everyone seems to ignore (i'm talking about tap jumping), things became more interesting. By using / -> ->-> ness' psi dashing became usable on the ground and out of shield far more quickly. Using these inputs is important for several reasons. 1) it allows you to input jump+jump as quickly as possible using different hands, which lets you double jump as quickly as possible after jump squat frames. Using the buttons twice is too slow for this, and the notches in the control stick make the motions easier since you won't really need to memorize a specific degree of input. 2) Using diagonal tap jump will set up ness to move left/right without you having to do anything, and again since dair auto-cancels, you end up with wavedash esque movement without wavedashing's disadvantages (slow startup, landing lag) and with it's own unique advantages (fastest character in the entire game to get out of shield, unique movement both on ground and with platforms, greatly enhanced evasive options, extended grabbing ability).

There are obvious downsides, being, if you execute this at a bad time or input it wrong, you either get hit and are without a double jump (which is obviously a huge deal for us), or you end up doing a variety of things depending on which input you missed. If you miss the second jump you do full hop dair (bad), if you miss the cstick you just double jump (BAD), if your thumb is too tense you might end up hitting B on your way to the cstick and doing pkfire or pkthunder (extra bad), and if you miss the fast fall you either won't auto-cancel and will probably suffer dair landing lag or you just won't do the motion fast enough to be helpful to you since you won't auto cancel as fast. The good news is as long as you execute correctly all the time, if you do it at the wrong time you're pretty likely to either be able to put up shield in time or land before you get hit and therefore keep your double jump.

"Psi dashing" (the name i gave this unique movement) is particularly interesting in regards to oos options. Since you can jump out of shield, meaning you can tap jump out of shield, we can psi dash out of shield. When we're in shield, the diagonal inputs will roll instead of jumping, which makes the tap jump input window more narrow than it is in neutral. You can either input in between the diagonal and up in order to psi jump as normal, or you can release shield and the control stick degree range won't be as narrow. You can even aim your shield left/right and use Y+Y to double jump instead, but it's pretty suboptimal compared to just getting the narrow control stick input and it forces you to sometimes aim your shield away from your opponent which isn't always a good idea.

If i'm correct, psi dashing perfectly results in a 10 frame movement option (5 frames to be "airborne", 1 frame to input jump+dair+fastfall, 4 frames auto-cancel?), which is faster than both wavedashing and normally dropping shield which are both 15 frames long, but i haven't actually done any calculations or fact checking on it's speed. Wavedashing will give you far more distance, but this gives ness a micro spacing game he didn't have before. Using it during your opponents approach will cause them to have to re-evaluate the next steps on the fly and give ness the opportunity to punish an approach. Using it in normal movement will make you harder to predict and harder to catch so long as you're not obvious with it. The biggest issues for me in using it defensively/offensively oos is accounting for shield stun and using it at the right time during shield pressure, specifically spacie shield pressure.

What situations can we escape using this? What match-ups does this change? Is it even useful? Discuss.

Here's a video of me practicing movement on platform stages. No johns on the tech flubs.

Smash Journeyman

I like seeing people actually exploring Ness' movement, it's by far the most unique movement in the game. However, the main problem with Ness is that he just can't really capitalize on his movement quirks. From what I can tell, the micro-spacing that you get from PSI Dashing probably isn't enough to really increase the effectiveness of the small amounts of options that Ness already has.

Maybe I'm just pessimistic right now, but I personally don't see any immediate application for this technique besides tech spam and showing off. I'll check it out and see for myself though, and I'll report back if I change my mind.

Smash Ace

That is the same, yeah. You should mention why it's worse than mew2 though, curious about that. The thing about using any aerial (or nair as the suggestion of using Z for aerials implies, and as the gif itself shows) is that it's a LOT easier to **** up compared to using dair, and landing with dair can potentially be faster than that due to his hurtbox being compressed upwards and therefore rising above the platform sooner? Just a thought; i don't know if his actual ability to land sooner or later is affected by using dair. Just looking at the gif it feels like it's faster using dair though. Dair should also preserve more momentum from the double jump when moving left/right compared to other aerials; although if this is true using his other aerials might actually serve a purpose since it would create a difference in psi dash length which would help in situations like the gif. I don't think you can do a left/right psi dash from that position in the gif with dair and land on the platform without at least edge cancelling but it's probably possible with other aerials. Since the point is to catch the auto-cancel window at which point none of his aerials have a hitbox anyway, you might as well go for the one with the best ease of execution you know? If you use Z for aerials to land, it's harder (imo) to put up light shield on landing as holding Z during psi dash will do that when you autocancel the dair, and your only option would otherwise be to use the shoulders. Unless i'm missing something since i don't think inputting aerial with Z and not letting go of Z would auto-cancel into light shield. Might have to mess around with that a bit.

The technique is more about the inputs themselves rather than the actual moves. On the ground, using tap jump to separate jump inputs between hands and set up for direction at the same time drastically reduces the physical requirement of doing four or five inputs consistently. Instead of three inputs dependent on your right hand (jump -> jump -> down cstick) and one or two on your left (fast fall or left/right -> fast fall), now it's two inputs on the left hand and two inputs on the right, cutting out the fifth input of choosing direction entirely. Though i think if you're totally perfect the fast fall input isn't even necessary at all but you might as well do it at first. Trust me, it's pretty tiring doing the bulk of a mere movement tech with only one of your hands. Though since coming up with the new inputs i have become better at doing the old method. Probably because i understand the timing better so it's less like i'm just spamming Y to double jump with one finger. It's still valuable for getting max distance psi dash out of shield.

For platforms it's the same as that, i just use dair instead of other aerials and without using Z because it's the best way to use. (at least initially and without extreme amounts of practice and frame analysis to make it worth doing anyway) The grounded version is "newer" and influences ness more imo. Out of shield applications are there; i would much rather psi dash out of shield instead of being stuck in the 15 frame drop shield animation or doing a potentially longer wavedash if i'm not 100% confident in my wavedashes. There are a lot of situations where something that hits your shield and is considered safe could in actuality be unsafe because of this movement. It might even give ness a frame advantage sometimes. Also, i have used it to escape pressure before. I'm pretty sure you can even escape fox jab->usmash even after a jab hit confirm as long as you DI out which ONLY works using dair. If they dash to usmash after the jab you'd probably have light shield up by then, and if they go for a grab instead psi dash is fast enough to get away from some grabs if you see them coming (except marth's probably).

My original idea of using the platform movement was for YYG techchases though.

Smash Journeyman

"That is the same, yeah. You should mention why it's worse than mew2 though, curious about that. "

Well it's only worse in the way that it's not as much as an improvement to waveland as mew2's is. Ness moves faster in his jump and so is less likely to be close to the platform on the first frame he is above it. If you compare to speeds of them ness' is quicker. You can even fast fall to make it faster, but that's tas like.

"The thing about using any aerial (or nair as the suggestion of using Z for aerials implies, and as the gif itself shows) is that it's a LOT easier to **** up compared to using dair"

Admittedly, I didn't focus much on the execution. But mew2's I messed with a bunch and considered X->Z the best method. I only used nair in the gif, cos then i can have my other hand on my mouse when I take the screenshots.

"and landing with dair can potentially be faster than that due to his hurtbox being compressed upwards and therefore rising above the platform sooner? Just a thought; i don't know if his actual ability to land sooner or later is affected by using dair. Just looking at the gif it feels like it's faster using dair though. "

Hurtboxes and models are never a true representation of position and collision detection. That is all the ECB, which does not move upwards in his dair.

"Dair should also preserve more momentum from the double jump when moving left/right compared to other aerials; although if this is true using his other aerials might actually serve a purpose since it would create a difference in psi dash length which would help in situations like the gif. I don't think you can do a left/right psi dash from that position in the gif with dair and land on the platform without at least edge cancelling but it's probably possible with other aerials. "

I don't think there is a difference in momentum with either move. But you could mixup distance by either doublejumping with a direction, doublejumping without a direction then drifting or not drifting.

"Since the point is to catch the auto-cancel window at which point none of his aerials have a hitbox anyway, you might as well go for the one with the best ease of execution you know? If you use Z for aerials to land, it's harder (imo) to put up light shield on landing as holding Z during psi dash will do that when you autocancel the dair, and your only option would otherwise be to use the shoulders. Unless i'm missing something since i don't think inputting aerial with Z and not letting go of Z would auto-cancel into light shield. Might have to mess around with that a bit."

It's also preference, I can agree that Nair is probably not a good option unless you have amazing techskill, but all his other aerials have decently large early autocancel windows. Using Z and holding it will make u lightshield the first frame you can.

Smash Ace

Definitely going to mess around with Z instead of C stick then. Hopefully the increased speed will be enough to compensate for the increase in inputs. I don't think it will affect grounded psi dash but aerial might stand to gain quite a lot.

Smash Rookie

I really love this mechanic! I have this little trick I use where I do immediate full-hop aerials (fair, bair, and nair) from underneath platforms, and I still have enough time to input another aerial or waveland. It's good for making use of your positional advantage, as well as put on serious pressure. The Psi Dash is so much more useful here because of the reduced ending lag, and for increased mixups I can even edge-cancel the dair.

I don't main Ness anymore and I've been thinking about going Ness at locals recently, but I can never find the right time because I'm starting to really level-up with Samus. Perhaps this Tuesday I'll try to get some Stream time so I can give the world my two-cents in regards to Ness. This character needs to go places and I nothing more than to be a part of it.

Smash Apprentice

I've been messing around with this technique for quite a while but so far it hasn't really helped me out in any significant way but i really do need a couple friendlies sessions were i spam the everliving crap out of it to find out in which situations it could be good.

A bit off topic: I've noticed that very rarely if i double jump though a platform or even onto the stage from below and do a tilt or grab or something at the right time, the double jump cancels and I perform the tilt from a standing position?? I cant recreate it, seems absolutely random (obviously it isnt). Ill keep trying to recreate it but i just dont know.... Has this happened to anyone else?

My attempt to clarify with an example: Say you double jump under a platform and as you approach the platform level you attempt to do a fair. Instead, your double jump is canceled and you do a ftilt instead??? How is this possible? I thought i saw a dphanna video about it at some point but i cant find it.

Smash Journeyman

Sounds like a NiL No-Impact Land. Happens when you are detected as landing with very little downward velocity, and is the fastest landing possible at only 1 frame. A lot of characters have a bunch of setups for performing them, I.e. Falco full hop to top platform. Most of these setups work as the jump height is near identical to the platform height. There are a few setups in which you can land whilst rising above a platform, but these require either a really janky jump/dj ecb pattern or using ecb manipulation, most likely ecb updates.

I would test this for ness for you but I currently don't have access to smash atm .

Smash Ace

I've been messing around with this technique for quite a while but so far it hasn't really helped me out in any significant way but i really do need a couple friendlies sessions were i spam the everliving crap out of it to find out in which situations it could be good.

A bit off topic: I've noticed that very rarely if i double jump though a platform or even onto the stage from below and do a tilt or grab or something at the right time, the double jump cancels and I perform the tilt from a standing position?? I cant recreate it, seems absolutely random (obviously it isnt). Ill keep trying to recreate it but i just dont know.... Has this happened to anyone else?

My attempt to clarify with an example: Say you double jump under a platform and as you approach the platform level you attempt to do a fair. Instead, your double jump is canceled and you do a ftilt instead??? How is this possible? I thought i saw a dphanna video about it at some point but i cant find it.

This is what i was talking about when i said the strange thing in the beginning. It feels like platform cancelling from other games, but characters like link seem to have a thing where if they jump at a specific point he appears in standing animation. Don't know if it's the same thing or not.

Smash Journeyman

So I have access to smash again. Did some tests for ness, His DJ's ECB does not move downward at all (except on a very specific setup when dropping from a platform, which cannot be abused). So you must time your double jump so it's peak is the height of the platform. Which is kinda slow, nonetheless some data for you:

Smash Ace

I'm pretty sure it's possible to NiL from ledge to stage through dj but it must be stupid hard to do consistently. After reading google stuff on NiL you can only do a NiL in a lagless animation, but both my and vrud's experiences are definitely not limited to apex of jump situations. Does ness' double jump have NiL possibilities by itself?

Smash Journeyman

I looked pretty thoroughly yesterday and could not see any possible way to land mid double jump. I can only imagine you are hitting a twice, one to aerial which then autocancels then the second to tilt.

His ecb in double jump is never lower then it's previous frame, until the apex. Except in one instance where you drop from a platform then double jump on a specific frame, but this happens way too early in the double jump to be useful.

I'm not gunna say it's impossible, and I'll have another look. But the pieces needed it for it to work just ain't there.

Smash Apprentice

i wasnt talking about the NiL that occurs only at the very end of the jump. What im talking about literally CANCELS the double jump like in the initial 10 frames or something I have no idea how it happens i havent had a chance to try to recreate it yet because i forgot my setup at the weekly argh

Smash Ace

i wasnt talking about the NiL that occurs only at the very end of the jump. What im talking about literally CANCELS the double jump like in the initial 10 frames or something I have no idea how it happens i havent had a chance to try to recreate it yet because i forgot my setup at the weekly argh

I'm guessing the 10 frame figure is out of thin air but i have the same experience and haven't been able to recreate. You had a setup? It's got to be a specific thing with his double jump without using any other input, i don't think anything else would work. Maybe it only works with one out of the three jump arcs?

Smash Apprentice

what im thinking is this (i can be totally wrong): while you are passing through a platform and attempt to do a fair, the game is tricked into think that you are actually in a standing position and throws out a ftilt instead (mostly when this happens to me its a ftilt that comes out but ive also experienced this with a grab)

Yeah i pulled the 10 frames out of my *** just to say that its not the very end i think it can happen at any point of the double jump i think. By setup i meant my gamecube haha i dont have a way to try to recreate it. I cant think of a situation or set of commands to use to try to recreate it but i will sure as heck try

Smash Ace

The problem with that for me is since i know for a fact that it's a nil, and nils need to occur during a no lag animation (no aerials or airdodges) so i don't think it's from fair but it sure isn't the absolute beginning of the jump (though it could be) and probably isn't available for the entire double jump. I was messing around and didn't find anything yet.

Smash Journeyman

Haha it's funny you say 10 frames. Most characters in this game have an ecb update on frame 10 of their doublejump, ness being one of them. An ecb update means the ecb "updates" to a fixed size and position. In most situations this update will be near identical to frame 9's ecb. But if you can manipulate the ecb to shrink, you can get frame 9's ecb to be much smaller so that on frame 10 when the update occurs there is a big difference in size and position. For a NIL you would need the update to have a downward exrension that makes the ecb reach a lower point then the previous frame.

I mentioned before there is a specific setup to abuse ecb manipulation, but that is isn't useful for ness. I was thinking a bit narrow minded as I did not question using the tech in other situations. Anyway I found, what I believe to be the NIL you guys are talking about.

I can't make a gif atm as I'm at my parents for crimbo, but you can expect that early next week.

There are two main setups for this. Fullhop+fast fall and a platform drop. You essentially need to be falling for a certain amount of time before you doublejump. And you doublejump under , but not far under, a platform.

Smash Ace

Does it matter which jump arc we use? I'll mess around with it, but it still doesn't really sound amazingly useful.

Edit: I managed to get the top plat nil but not the fullhop one. Much faster than psi dash but much harder to do consistently. I think it's a LOT easier using the backwards double jump to nil compared to the forwards jump.

Smash Ace

Combined with psi dashing though, ness' platform game just got a huge boon. If you miss the nil you still have time to dair and catch the autocancel+movement.

Edit: i'm actually starting to get the hang of it. You can do it on any stage but it feels easiest on battlefield and dream land which is really interesting because those stages take the longest to traverse due to higher platforms.

Edit 2: I can confirm that an early ledge nil exists. I did one in tourny today by accident. I believe i was facing backwards off stage, though if i was coming off of the platform it probably wouldn't be any different than the top plat nil.

Smash Rookie

Vrud I believe you are doing a double jump land. It's substantially easier to do with peach but it happens because DJC characters dip down at the beginning of their jump, which if spaced correctly makes them land on the platform. I think Azusa(sp?) used it this weekend at the foundry for a DJL down smash. It's not particularly new tech but it definitely isn't well implemented,

Bonus - Ness can do any grounded move OOS by Shield dropping DJL. None of them end up being super fast but it's cool none the less.

Smash Ace

Vrud I believe you are doing a double jump land. It's substantially easier to do with peach but it happens because DJC characters dip down at the beginning of their jump, which if spaced correctly makes them land on the platform. I think Azusa(sp?) used it this weekend at the foundry for a DJL down smash. It's not particularly new tech but it definitely isn't well implemented,

No, it's definitely a NIL. Since practicing it i can do it on command basically, we just don't have a video about it. I did what you are talking about in tourny yesterday and i can tell it's going to be a ***** to practice that if it's at all possible lol.

Smash Journeyman

Vrud I believe you are doing a double jump land. It's substantially easier to do with peach but it happens because DJC characters dip down at the beginning of their jump, which if spaced correctly makes them land on the platform. I think Azusa(sp?) used it this weekend at the foundry for a DJL down smash. It's not particularly new tech but it definitely isn't well implemented,

Bonus - Ness can do any grounded move OOS by Shield dropping DJL. None of them end up being super fast but it's cool none the less.

Not true. Ness does not dip downward with his DJ, neither does mewtwo. Only Peach and Yoshi can do this. You can however DJC with an aerial and land in autocancel frames, which has been covered a huge amount in this thread already.

Smash Ace

Not hard with practice, though input lag between televisions may or may not be a problem beyond that. I think the ledge one is much harder but it might be that ledge nil is best on yoshi's and top plat nil is best on battlefield.

You can fastfall them to make them faster, but it changes the size of the window depending on when you fastfall.

Vrud remember you have to drop through a platform for this to work properly. Then you just drift to the lower platform and doublejump when you are just under the platform. The second method I showed is very unreliable, you need to fastfall from a high enough height, and you aren't guaranteed for it to work, but even when you do it's frame perfect. You can use setups like the one in the gif, which is just fullhop fastfall at apex, for a guaranteed window.

Smash Ace

Yeah those windows line up with what i have felt during practice. It's not exactly worth doing outside of bf. I'm sure with a ton more practice the yoshi's nil can be considered useable since the closeness of the platforms is closest to battlefield. Something you forgot to mention is the tree platform on the right of pokemon forest transformation. Since it has those sharp angles on the side, you can nil onto that platform for essentially free. Not sure what kind of window it has but it's incredibly easy to do for several reasons that i doubt i need to go into.

2 frame window for battlefield and dreamland seems tight but it actually isn't really. Get the feel for the window and then experiment with the kind of distance that's possible and you'll see you can nil from almost every position on bf's top platform. The only exceptions are if you're at the 40% or 60% position and you try to say cover more than 55% of the platform while facing backwards which won't work nearly as easily because ness' backwards double jump doesn't travel as far horizontally as his forwards jump. Once you get a feel for the window, you'll probably find yourself doing accidental nils in other areas. I've done a few ledge nils and bottom plat nils after practicing the top plat nil without knowing exactly how it worked. For dreamland...you're probably only going to ever get something out of a nil there if you're in the situation of rolling on the top platform for whatever reason because otherwise there's not a whole lot of reason to be inside the small nil position window, or at least not a reason to specifically put yourself there without it being obvious. For everything else psi dash will get you from top to side platforms out of a platform drop quicker, "safer" (in that it's possibly faster; psi dash still has a far larger window where you have no double jump), and easier than nil will.

I'll make another video later showing how consistent you can get the BF nil, and how my tech skill has improved in general.

Smash Apprentice

wow this is all very interesting! Thanks to you two for explaining it because its been a mystery for me for god knows how long. Also, ive been trying to implement psi dashing into my game and slowly im seeing places where it can come in handy. I find myself thinking sometimes "Oh damn actually a psy dash wouldve been better in that situation" a lot more often! Im starting to think it is more useful than i thought at first!

This is all great new ness stuff excited to implementing it into my game. This has been a good thread

Smash Ace

wow this is all very interesting! Thanks to you two for explaining it because its been a mystery for me for god knows how long. Also, ive been trying to implement psi dashing into my game and slowly im seeing places where it can come in handy. I find myself thinking sometimes "Oh damn actually a psy dash wouldve been better in that situation" a lot more often! Im starting to think it is more useful than i thought at first!

This is all great new ness stuff excited to implementing it into my game. This has been a good thread

Which situations? :o Usually i'm just using it in neutral game and just before someone goes in. Haven't tried for many psi dash grabs or used it in oos game though. Working on oos game by doing djc dair -> hard shield -> djc dair -> light shield as fast as i can (with some psi dashes oos mixed in).

Smash Ace

I did a no impact land on randall who came out from the bottom randall gate on the left side of yoshi's the other day. (and then proceeded to kill myself, lol. zoso had killed himself off randall earlier that night so randall must have been feeling particularly homicidal that day) I was in tumble, and i realized that i sometimes get unintended NILs when i approach platforms by jumping out of tumble. @schmooblidon
does being in tumble affect the window for NILs at all?

Smash Journeyman

So I need one thing explained to me real fast: How does this affect our neutral game? Does it improve it? Hinder it?

The reason I ask this is because I only have your video to go off of and don't know how feasible it is to actually control the distance. I also am not completely sure how to incorporate this into my movement options. While it is certainly great tech that should be utilized, I'd really like to discuss its uses in neutral game when combined with dash-dancing and wavedashing. I know you said you can DO it on command, but the more important question I have (since that can't really be reflected in the video) is whether you can CONTROL it.

Smash Ace

So I need one thing explained to me real fast: How does this affect our neutral game? Does it improve it? Hinder it?

The reason I ask this is because I only have your video to go off of and don't know how feasible it is to actually control the distance. I also am not completely sure how to incorporate this into my movement options. While it is certainly great tech that should be utilized, I'd really like to discuss its uses in neutral game when combined with dash-dancing and wavedashing. I know you said you can DO it on command, but the more important question I have (since that can't really be reflected in the video) is whether you can CONTROL it.

I keep meaning to make an updated video but am pretty lacking in the equipment department. I modded my controller yesterday though, so i will try to start something this weekend. I'm a LOOOT more consistent/proficient and faster at this now, but it's one of those things that has a huge amount of learning curve. It's been over a year since i started practicing and i still haven't mastered it.

Honestly i don't think it couldn't help neutral game. It's a quick movement tech that can be used directly out of shield, dash dance, wave dash, run, and walk. It can close distance well especially after you get a hit but can't directly combo, and the distance it covers can be pretty awkward when you try and cover the same distance with wavedash (and is less frames). It hinders neutral if you use it the wrong way basically. Before dair comes out you're shifting your hurtbox in ways that sometimes is difficult to account for, and you can get caught if you try to use it the wrong way but it's exceptionally rare that this happens. The argument could be made that your jump could get clipped, but 9.5 times out of 10 if i get hit i still have my jump, and i only got hit because i didn't buffer shield before i landed or i didn't do the psi-dash well enough.

The distance can't really be controlled because the arcs and momentum of your double jump are pre-defined. The distances for neutral, forward, and backwards psi-dash are all different though. My favorite application so far is either forward psi-dash JC grab (great range) or backwards psi-dash DJC bair (which is a sexy feeling input wise). I also have moments where i get it so perfectly that i completely evade approaches (falco dair, falcon nair/dair, etc).

Smash Journeyman

Okay. All of that makes sense. I was doing some tinkering with it yesterday, and I found that there are probably two distances for each direction. There is a short hop distance and a full hop distance. I'm having trouble controlling when I get a short hop version right now because the inputs are so foreign to me, but I can consistently get the full hop version. It's a little bit weird if I'm honest. I can only see one application of this (that I can use): tech chasing off of throws (because Ness is kinda slow).

Smash Ace

Okay. All of that makes sense. I was doing some tinkering with it yesterday, and I found that there are probably two distances for each direction. There is a short hop distance and a full hop distance. I'm having trouble controlling when I get a short hop version right now because the inputs are so foreign to me, but I can consistently get the full hop version. It's a little bit weird if I'm honest. I can only see one application of this (that I can use): tech chasing off of throws (because Ness is kinda slow).

Ah ok i forgot about full hopping and whatnot. Due to aerial drift you have a lot more freedom if you're landing with it than if you use it off the ground. There ARE distances you can adjust if off the ground again due to drift, but since you won't have a jump the whole time it's really just important that you land (fast fall) ASAP unless it's your advantage.

What you're doing is slightly different from what i'm doing though but it's also fundamentally similar. You're jumping and waiting to DJC dair AC, whereas i'm doing it straight off of the ground. (see input map in OP for help visualizing) The way i do it, it doesn't matter what kind of jump it is because the entire sequence is done as quickly as possible. In fact, since it's tap jump, it's pretty much always a constant full hop, but the DJC dair AC comes immediately after being airborne.

You're right that tech chasing is an application but i haven't done any testing to see where it's used best. :/ If we consider uthrow and they tech on platforms, then you'll DJC dair AC to land on platforms with only 4 frames of lag (vs 10 frames) and then follow up from there. If you consider dthrow, then if they tech away psi-dash wavedash would really help you catch up to them in time for a follow up. (especially fox)

Smash Journeyman

When it comes to tech-chasing opportunities I think only the dthrow is necessary to consider since with uthrow you can still waveland -> regrab, otherwise you probably want to be under them for an uair. But it is just as you said, if they tech away it is the only way Ness has the speed to catch up, though I'll have to test the safety of it in friendlies and such.

I think it's also really useful for punishing a misspaced Marth attack since his recovery animations are so slow.

Smash Journeyman

Okay! After playing on a CRT (since all my friend had when I posted this was an HDTV), I can definitely see more movement uses with this. I've mostly been showing it early and using it to cross-up on shield for a pivot grab. Since the option is so fast, though, it can put an opponent on their heels after it punishes them for putting a hitbox out (I'm looking at Jiggs and Marth here). I'm trying to incorporate it more and more into my neutral game and punish game.

Smash Journeyman

I'm revisiting this after many many months. The tap jump is so hard. I may switch to jumping with X and sliding to Y. Time to kill my hands with hours of practice and finding out what works and what doesn't. PSI Dashing is the hardest tech I've ever tried to do except maybe some Yoshi stuff because his DJC is so different. I definitely think it's the most input intensive.